Thursday, October 16, 2003

A small group of people trying to cross into Iraq from Syria clashed with U.S. forces and a U.S. military helicopter had to land after coming under small-arms fire, the U.S. military said yesterday.

The people, whom the military called "infiltrators," were all killed or captured in the firefight late Tuesday night far from any major border crossing, a military spokesman said. There were no American casualties.

Syria later denied there had been any infiltration attempt from its territory.

"The news about people infiltrating to Iraq from Syria are fake. This is not the first time such allegations are made," the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted a government official as saying.